[Night Fury]

So, I'm not sure how this happened, but while I was using my desktop a while back it sorta had a meltdown.

I know I will have to replace at least the power supply, once I have the money for it. Hoping the rest of the computer isn't also dead too... However, it was running fine when suddenly my it turned off and wouldn't turn back on.

The next day my friend had a look at it and it blew a breaker and we unplugged it before turning the breaker back on.

Later that day, he took it apart and he found a melted part in the power-supply.


Just kind of curious if anyone has had a similar problem with a computer.
I kind of wonder if being staticy around it may have increased its chances of this problem.

I know I've accidentally killed some electronics because of static, an electronic scale and a tablet, the shocks from those were about an inch to an inch and a half away, went to touch them and got zapped and they no longer worked...

However, my laptops seem to run longer than the other people I know, about a year or so longer... so I don't know

[Glitch]

The closest I had was a bottle fell over onto my laptop and slow dripped while i was sleeping into the keyboard which fried half of the motherboard. It was a horribly sad day for me :(

[Coda]

Leaking capacitors is a fairly common failure mode for power supplies. Of all of the components that go into modern electronics, capacitors are probably the hardest to test during production. A transistor, resistor, or diode that doesn't do what it's supposed to do is fairly easy to detect at manufacturing time, but a defective capacitor still behaves as intended -- it just overheats and leaks or swells after a few months or years.

[Night Fury]

Glitch: ah that's not good, that's exactly what happened to my little little sisters computer however our other sister is the one that caused the spill...

Coda: I didn't know that, there was one spot, guessing it was one of those nodes, a little black square was melty
So do you think that it's possible that getting a new battery may fix it... hmm there maybe still a chance the motherboard may of got fried from that but nothing else is melted, so hoping it's all good

[Coda]

The power supply isn't a battery at all. The only battery in a desktop is the little button cell that keeps a tiny amount of memory saved while the power is off. But yes, when a power supply goes out you can usually just replace it. It's not likely that the motherboard would have taken too bad of damage from it failing that way -- it would be another matter if it blew out from a lightning strike or something, but you should be okay here.

Just make sure you buy one with at least the same wattage, and don't get the cheap ones because they can't sustain their rated load and burn out more often. If you're paying $50-$70 you're probably okay.

[Night Fury]

Ah, well mentioning lightning, it may also be an issue from that, however, it had been a while since then, and where I live they keep turning the power off and resetting it... which may of increased the chances of this happening

it's been a couple years since the lightning thing, hard-drive died after a surge, replaced it and afterwards it wasn't recognizing RAM and it's dual core processor like it had before...
sometimes it showed less ram and other times the dual processor showed up as two separate ones and it couldn't run games like skyrim anymore... could play more simple games though

I sorta forgot about all that...
it maybe just better to invest in a new computer... ... when I can at least
my friend suggested I get a case that can hold my hard-drive almost like an external drive at least to get data off it...

[Coda]

It does sound like you were having other issues, yeah.

Turning the power off and on a lot isn't generally a big deal with hardware -- that's more disruptive to software (partially-saved files, mostly).

Meanwhile, if it's just temporary, you can just plug the hard drive into the new computer internally using one of the extra SATA connections.

[Night Fury]

Sadly the other computers I have are older and the plugs are different
I guess I'm just out of luck for now till I can get a new computer.

Thank you and good to know

[hyjin]

I had a powersupply explode (cheap default case one). It made popping noises until i moved my chair; i put my hand in-between the chair and pc i got shocked.

[Coda]

That sounds like a ground fault, and they're as dangerous as they sound.

[hyjin]

It happened while we were away on vacation... i think the surge protector didnt do a good job.

[Den]

Originally Posted by hyjin

It happened while we were away on vacation... i think the surge protector didnt do a good job.

I'm inclined to agree. 0.o

[Coda]

For information's sake: Surge protectors are designed to safeguard against transient power spikes, not lightning strikes. They're rated for a certain amount of power, and a spike beyond that rating will still pass through, and potentially damage the surge protector in the process. A failed surge protector then passes current through unfiltered, so you won't know that there's been a problem.

However, the description of getting an electric shock from your case doesn't sound like a lightning strike or power surge at all. It sounds like, as I said, a ground fault.

Electricity lesson time!
Inside a computer, the electrical components are connected to the metal parts of the case, which itself is connected to the grounding pin of the power outlet (the round third pin, instead of either of the two flat ones), which is then connected to a metal pole in the foundation of the building. This serves multiple purposes, but for this discussion the relevant purpose of this connection is as a safety mechanism: Electricity wants to take the shortest path to the biggest current sink available, and the Earth itself is a gigantic current sink, so this connection takes any excess or incorrectly-wired electricity and provides a short path for it to escape somewhere safe.

A ground fault means that there's live current connected to that grounding somewhere. This could be caused by a failing electronic component, for example, or by a wire connected wrong, or by something metal on a circuit touching the case when it shouldn't, or by water creating a connection somewhere, or by an overheating component melting a little bit, et cetera. If your house wiring is working the way it's SUPPOSED to, a ground fault will cause the circuit breaker to turn off, shutting down power to the malfunctioning device. (In places where a ground fault is particularly likely and particularly dangerous, such as a bathroom where a hair dryer might get wet, the power outlets themselves are equipped with ground-fault interruptors that detect this problem instantly. If the outlet has "test" and "reset" buttons, it has one of these protective devices.)

Unfortunately, a weak ground fault may not be strong enough to cause the circuit breaker to trip, or the grounding connection itself could be damaged (broken third pin on the power cord, for example). When this happens, the metal parts of the device start to build up an electric charge that doesn't have anywhere to go. When you touch it, your own body becomes the connection between that charge build-up and the Earth, so the electricity goes through you -- and you get zapped.